


Edens Omnia

by Novastel



Category: Original Work
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Based on a Vocaloid Song, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Songfic, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:33:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27271978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Novastel/pseuds/Novastel
Summary: Welcome, to my OC drabble collection. Context is at the end of every chapter - or not.The actual story in chronological order, I'll write later. If you have questions or want to use one of my characters, contact me in the specific chapters’ comments.
Kudos: 4





	Edens Omnia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yettisyd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yettisyd/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some references to Autobiography by Ponkansoup, will do another proper songfic

August didn't think of herself to be someone who'd want to punch a person in desperate need of help, but right now she was getting pretty damn close.

She'd just finished dragging Kuro's body out of the car, up the ramp, and to the middle of the mansion, silently swearing to herself she wouldn't get desperate and do something dumb like ask for help and get tattled on to Yao, and finally decided to stop putting off the much-awaited "is he alive" check right there in the Commons. August originally planned on bringing him upstairs to his room, but settled for dumping Kuro's body on the couch and checking on him there. There was no way she'd be able to haul him up the stairs to Kuro's room without killing them both.

"Dude. _Dude_. Tell me you didn't just do yourself in like this," August shook Kuro's slumped figure, who immediately went from somewhat sitting up on the couch to flopping over face-down on the coffee table. He reeked of alcohol. August was still freezing from the cold fall air in her pj's. But whatever. She put a hand to his throat and hoped for even the slightest echo of a beat.

Nothing.

Usually, it was a prank Kuro'd pull on August to scare her into thinking he'd passed, him suspending his heart's movement, and then he'd suddenly sit up and say something like "I hope you didn't think I was _dead_ " and then they'd have a good laugh while Yao scolded them for pulling such a dangerous trick. Oh, those times were fun. Right now, the situation she was in was the opposite of those times.

It had been almost 5 hours since she got the call from the hospital to come and see to her dead sibling. Kuro's record for stopping his own pulse and playing dead was only 11 minutes.

"Shit shit shit-"

August flipped him over onto the floor, Kuro's head barely missing the table corner, where he made a muffled thud and still didn't move. Ok. Now was a good time to get desperate. She raised a hand, ready to slap the life back into Kuro when he turned on his side and groaned.

"Ah..."

His voice was groggy, hoarse, obviously demolished by a hard night of drinking, but at least it meant Kuro hadn't died. He covered his mouth and turned on his side to face August-

"Oh thank Edens-OH GODS-" 

"Urgh..."

-and promptly threw up on her, a repugnant mixture of whisky, stomach acid, and-oh dear Edens, was that _blood_? All on her and the carpet, nothing on him. The smell made August want to do the same.

"H-hey, Akko. I'm...back-urp-" He gagged. She grabbed Kuro by the wrist and slapped his hand back to his mouth. Stars and suns, he was more wrecked than August had gauged earlier. "Uh-uh, _fuck_ no. Not on me, not again. Try to hold it while I get you your stuff, ok?"

August scrambled down the hall to grab a bucket or something and maybe some cleaning supplies and medicine, muttering something about being dead for over 4 hours. 

"Gone for that long, huh..." He sat up and edged away from the puddle of his insides on the carpet, head spinning. If Yao didn't throttle him for this, August tattling on him getting alcohol poisoning and nearly going permanently deceased would do the trick. Not like he didn't want to stay dead, it was just... Kuro didn't want to hurt everyone by dying so suddenly. He was still alive simply for their sake, so that they wouldn't be hurt.

Kuro suddenly couldn't help but think of Clara and how she felt, during that entire time leading up to her death. It was all he ever thought about, for-what, 10-odd years, now? Yeah. She'd haunted him for around 11 years. 11 years since Kuro had made it out of hell itself, straight-up ascended to what probably counted as godhood for that, just to get a shot at happiness. Only to create his own personal abyss up here. 

"Ugh, you idiot..."

_Did she stay because she believed me, or because she was trying to be nice?_

_What would have happened if I had actually listened to her?_

_If I had paid attention to the discrepancies of what I thought was right, would Clara have never gotten hurt?_

_Maybe if I had brought Kiku with me it wouldn't have turned out this way._

_No. He'd just make it worse._

_But he's arguably a better person than me. Right?_

_Nah, the guy has the same mind as me. It would probably be significantly worse if it was him._

_Plus, it's his fault this shit went down. All he had to do was disobey orders..._

_He's the same as me, after all. It should be easy for him to choose selfishness._

_After all, it's all that we are._

_But couldn't that make it worse?_

_The guy is more messed up than me and had no contact with anything or anyone for well over a decade, so could he have even-_

_..._

Oh, whatever.

What was the point of being a god if all you could ever do for eternity is live a life regretting all you've done? _And_ Kuro couldn't even take his own life or die in any way. " _The deal is only shit if you make it and decide not to be ignorant about the terms._ " Wooow, Dea even warned him, and Kuro ignored her. Karma or sheer unluckiness, he'd never know which, all led to the point that Dea would always make: you were incredibly fucked if you decided not to listen to her. Either way, Kuro had fucked up so now here he was, the deity version of a highschool dropout, trying for once in his life to do something so easy it was ludicrous, insane, and still failing. Seriously, whatever determination made Kuro think his life's purpose was to get to the surface, meet Clara, and live there, preferably with her, had left him years ago. Now all he was left to do was to try and die as to atone because Kuro never got over a dead girl he didn't even know and he couldn't even pull it off by the slightest.

The human will was a means to an end.

It wasn't just him, though, who was so distraught all these years after the slaughter. August seemed to be the same. It was obvious she was lying when she said she'd gotten over her Rara- _jie's_ death every time they asked her. Yanli was constantly putting out job ads specific to Marin's workaholic perfectionist skill set, like she was hoping for her ghost to at least come and apply. Every time someone wearing something with a red hoodie passed Jihoon by in public he'd grit his teeth and stare, expecting to see a familiar face, then look away, visibly disappointed. Yao spent all his time trying to organize all the photos he'd collected over the years in storage, for no reason, and would only stop until he found photos containing some very specific (missing) people, especially the faded mirror image of Kuro. Kiku seemed very attached to Clara whenever Kuro talked to him in the containment chamber, and that wasn't even counting his memories that Kuro had stolen when he wasn't looking. And the ever-constant lead-chasing adventures they were all willingly led on by August. Yes, that too. All of them, himself, August, Yanli, Jihoon, Yao, Kiku, (wherever the hell he was) even their associates Simon and Emesa and the rest. 

They all never got over the Kamishiro siblings getting murdered.

But they didn't know how most of it went down, just that one day they found Clara's body and the next day it disappeared and Marin, who was in a coma, flatlined and disappeared at roughly the same time.

What if Kuro told them what he knew that they didn't?

What if they knew of all he was guilty of? His involvement with Clara, Kiku and his complacency with the ECC's questions that ended up driving them all to edges that shouldn't have even been approached, the sea of red flowers around the creek in the forest, Dea's caustic lectures and her sudden aim to kill, Dirac's escape through the wake vortex and into the Rift, all because of him?

" _Murderer, liar, you empty, heartless bastard, how dare you assume this would all turn out alright. Someone's dead because of you._ "

" _It shouldn't have been her. She deserved better to live more than you._ "

_"I thought we made promises, I thought we'd keep them..!"_

If they knew what Kuro had done...

"...They'd kill me."

"Who's gonna kill you?"

"OH, MY FUCKING-"

Kuro freaked and threw a punch at her on impulse. August was back, having already obtained the items needed for cleanup and treatment of his current state. Had been back for long enough, it seemed, for her to decide she wanted to sneak up on Kuro and scare him by crawling onto the coffee table behind and scream into his ear.

"Whoa-hey, will you calm _down_? I'm gonna make sure Yao doesn't know about what just happened, so don't lose your shit yet," Akko lurched backwards off the table and onto the floor as she dodged his fist. 

"Sorry." Kuro withdrew his hand quickly. "So. Can I guess what one of the conditions is?"

She sat down and crossed her legs, once-overing him as she sat. "You lucky bastard, you made it out clean. Your clothes are a-ok... " August had changed into a clean pair of pyjamas way quicker than Kuro had expected. The set of pj's he'd thrown up on were the expensive ones, right? So why wasn't his adoptive sister trying to break him in half him for ruining it? August had a tendency to do that whenever something she liked got ruined, so why was she holding back this time?

"Anyways. Go on."

"You won't tell Yao if I swear not to do this again."

"On your honour."

"You really are just making sure I never find a loophole for the rest of the time I know and am making deals with you, huh?"

"Can't have you cheating death itself without me having a bit of the glory."

"The sad part here is that you're not wrong but not right and I have no right to educate you on which is which."

"You don't have to," She said, nonchalantly waving a hand, then laughed a giggle that sounded so cute yet so chaotic only August would have pulled it off. "I am, in fact, very aware using your complex-shaped Achilles heel against you is very much morally gray."

"So you won't use it against me?"

"Actually, I will. And you guessed right."

Kuro sighed. Irony was an excellent medicine for exasperation. "There is no god."

"Why do you say that every time you end up in a place you don't like? Anyways," She pulled out her phone, the little red string and bell charm tinkling. That phone case could blind someone with the amount of glitter in it. Kuro was convinced it could be repurposed into an effective impromptu flash-bang grenade if they ever got into a pinch.

Kuro watched as she opened the audio recording app. "I'm gonna record all of this as well." The recording button is pressed, a chime is issued from the phone clutched in August's hand. 

"Do you, Kurokage, swear to forever curb your suicidal inhibitions and never pull the bullshit of this night ever again?"

_Kuroka-what? Screw it, August is giving me the "don't make me record this again" glare. Wow, she's crankier than I expected._

"Yes."

"And to always come with me, Lan August, on my misadventures to search for an unspecified person and/or thing on all occasions whenever the whim strikes me?"

_Maybe I should just tell August it hurts too much for me to talk about Clara, let alone actively search for her knowing all that I do?_

"...Yes."

_No._

"Thank you." August stopped the recording.

_Don't want to hurt her. Let her keep hoping, it's probably better._

"Gonna go now. You want anything?"

_It's obvious she'd be able to take it, though, but then August would change, get as fucked up as the rest of us._

"Can I get some coffee?"

_We can't let that happen, now, can we?_

"I think we only have double-caf and I can only make cold brew, but I think you're ok with that," She raised her eyebrows. "Huh? Huh?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

Kuro got up a bit shakily and walked to sit at the ledge that overlooked the giant window facing the city. The view was nice. Calming and precarious. A perfect spot for him. 

"Also I'm gonna warn you now, I _will_ be using the benzo-emetic blend," She yelled over her shoulder as she did this getting-up-crawl-scramble-thing towards the cart on the other side of the room. "We both know you're gonna be vomiting regardless, so it's better to get it all out. You're also gonna be half-dead, ether-drained, and pissed as hell from a nasty hangover for the day after you wake up, so we can at least try and heal you a bit. That and the fact you never sleep, properly. Ever."

"That stuff can give people memory loss, you want me to forget about our deal and accidentally get us both killed when I slip and tell Yao?" Ok, that "when" shouldn't have been there, but since it gave Kuro's words a more threatening tone, so he let it happen.

"Only very specific blends. This one is definitely safe. I tried making my own coffee-slushie-thing this morning, downed half the pot. I passed out but didn't forget anything. Oh, and don't think that claiming that this coffee gave you memory loss later on will work, either. There's only one blend that did that before, and I distinctly remember I took care of it. Think I put in the Armory." Kuro had terrible eyesight and was basically blind in his "voided" eye, but he didn't need to see August's smirk from across the room at the coffee station to tell him the unspoken: " _I am also hoarding some of it, just in case I need to knock out and possibly delete the short-term memory of someone on my own._ "

Kuro was pretty sure that smirk stuck throughout the entire time August made his coffee and chatted with him.

"You're just doing whatever you want, huh?"

"Yep."

"And yet you manage to always get away with everything."

"Yep."

"You've probably murdered and told Yao and I bet he didn't even bat an eye."

"Yep."

"Whereas I can't even have alcoholism and act upon it without him telling Yanli, you, and Jihoon to _secretly implant a tracker in my spine_ before I even think about sneaking out.

"Yep."

"Wait, I've been meaning to ask you forever; did you lie when you said you took it out later on?"

"Yep."

"Are you just gonna say 'yep' to everything, because if you are-"

"Yep."

"-don'tyoudaresayitagain-GODDAMIT-"

August nearly dropped the porcelain teacup from laughing as she walked back across the room. "You said it yourself," she drawled. "I'm just doing whatever I want."

"Evident. Veeeery evident." Kuro broke down the words in a clipped sibilance, hissing the T's. He wasn't actually mad, it was just part of the performance of salty sarcasm. Took a sip. Ice cold. Nearly bit his tongue and/or choked from how intensely frigid it was. He'd okayed cold brew, he was expecting something chilly, but not freaking permafrost in a cup. "How much ice?"

"About as much as your room."

"Hey. My room isn't that cold."

"It is so. Here," August pulled out her phone. She'd pulled up a little t-chart labelled 'Temps'. Right at the bottom was Kuro's room, with the average temperature: -19 _°. Ether. That phone of hers must be ether. If not, how the hell is it able to contain all the info August could ever need on a whim? I bet if she didn't have her phone in a debate she'd just throw her desk thing at her opponent._ "I took a measure of everyone's usual chamber temp. Most of us just thought we were just imagining the cold in yours, but we were all right. It's polar in there."

"...Ok."

"Do you need the cold to keep your dead soul from rotting, like that Spanish guy from that creepy story with the air conditioner?" 

Kuro sighed again, the something-teenth time in the past 30 minutes he'd been with August. If he had a soul he'd have breathed it out either back when Kuro was at the bar or when August told him about the deal's circumstances. "Yes. Yes, I do, Akko."

"Yeah, so I'm helping you. Shut up and drink your caffeine."

Kuro just rolled his eyes and scoffed, smiling a bit. August was a terrible little sister, but she was the best little sister he could hope for.

"I feel like shit, so I'm gonna go sleep now. Have fun with your coffee," August waved over-shoulder while she walked away, back turned, so obviously texting someone or searching Google for how to do Jacob's ladder in cat's cradle because Lan August was all about that "threads of fate" aesthetic. 

"Ok."

"Good." She took the stairs, humming a song that echoed throughout the stairwell, getting fainter with every footstep. Not eerily, more like an old, distorted, comforting memory. 

"I'll just stay here..."

And so he did. For the whole night. Kuro sat there, coffee cup in hand, staring at the lights and waiting to pass out, wondering.

Wondering what it would be like for him if he'd lived a life more than just disappointment and wasted chance. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To syd: Here ya go, payment for nearly 3 commissions-


End file.
